Midknight At The Oasis
by Little Kuriboh
Summary: Marik and Bakura realise they've been cybering with each other.


MIDKNIGHT AT THE OASIS

For Rinbo

###

"I have a date!"

Bakura stirred, his eyes immediately accustomed to the dim room. He could see perfectly well in the dark; it was a trick that had served him for many thousands of years. For it was not a trait of the body he possessed, but a knack he'd appropriated from the mystical item that slept against his chest. He saw things others could or would not, for fear of acknowledging terrible, awful inevitabilities. The end of the world. The death of everything.

Now, he too was horrified by what he saw. Marik was wearing a tuxedo.

"Ugh," Bakura's arm moved to cover his eyes, his elbow aimed defiantly at the image. The rest of his body refused to move, though he was not tired. He did not require sleep like other mortals. Like any good villain that didn't want to get killed in the space of a single season, he had learned to do things one step at a time. This included waking up. "When did you start wearing actual clothes?"

"I always wear clothes!" said Marik, insulted. He walked over to the desk where Bakura had been sleeping, and Bakura couldn't help but miss the lack of visible stomach, with its attractive muscles that stood out like thick scales on a lizard's back. Marik was like some exotic beast, the last of his kind. To see him like this was like seeing a jaguar in a turtleneck sweater. Idiotic and sad. "I have the fashion sense of a king! Nay, a queen!"

"No argument here," Bakura muttered. He wondered if Marik ever listened to himself speak, and if so, whether or not he noticed just how irritating the noise could be at times. For Bakura, Marik's had been the only other voice in his life for a few years now. Perhaps the only voice outside of his own that he'd ever really spoken to. Certainly, he'd talked to others in the last few millennia, but they'd usually been victims, sacrifices, slaves. People he didn't respect, admire, or love. Marik was not amongst this number. Marik was in his very own bracket, and Bakura had felt the bracket grow ever more snug these last few months. It was as though he had become used to the boy. "You look ridiculous."

"Ridiculously sexy!" Marik added, brandishing his nose at the ceiling.

Bakura blanched, and spoke words he'd always wanted to say to Marik, but in an entirely different tone: "Marik, take those clothes off right now."

"Make me!"

Bakura resisted the impulse to follow through with this command, and went instead to rub his temples, the default response to many a Marik-ism. He sat up in the chair and his back created a loud, satisfying cracking sound that made Marik jump, as though he'd imagined the noise to be Bakura pulling out a weapon of some sort. Bakura smiled the way a dragon might before swallowing an oncoming knight, confident and greedy.

"Sorry," he purred, rolling his shoulders forward and narrowing his eyes in a faux-seductive pose. "I'm just a little stiff."

"That's what you get for staying up all night!" Marik nagged. "What were you doing, anyway? I heard you laughing all the way down the hall. You sound like a JERK when you laugh."

"Indeed," Bakura licked his fingertips and went to work adjusting the tips of his bangs so they didn't hang quite so lazily. Marik referred to them as his 'batwings'. Bakura didn't much care for the comparison, apt as it may have been. "Whereas you sound positively delightful when you cackle like a wounded hyena."

"I don't-"

"With a sore throat."

Marik glared. Typically, Marik's anger would have been diminished by the sight of his abdominal muscles flexing in frustration, or the vaguely villainous glint in his eyes, but with the revealing outfit gone and the atmosphere so dreary, Bakura actually felt as though he'd genuinely hurt the other's feelings. It didn't, however, stop him from chuckling to himself about it.

"You still sound like a jerk," Marik repeated, folding his arms. "Besides, my date thinks I have a beautiful sounding voice."

"Your what?" Bakura snapped out of the giggle-fit and back into reality. He remembered now - he thought he had simply imagined that word when Marik walked into the room and gave him such a rude awakening, but now it turned out to be reality. Or so it seemed. "Marik, have you been playing with your Rod again? You know it can have serious side-effects. Delusional side-effects."

"My date is not a delusion!" Marik insisted, though he did still have his Millennium Rod clutched in his right hand. It conflicted with his attire, although Bakura still appreciated the way Marik would unconsciously stroke the tip of the Rod whenever he became caught up in his own fantasy. "She's a very classy lady. She likes all the finest things, like polo, and caviar, and playing polo while eating caviar."

Bakura's nose exploded with the largest snort this side of a public restroom in the 1980s. "You're going on a date with a woman?"

"Yes!" Marik replied. "Is that so shocking?"

"A tad!" Bakura gasped, clutching at his sides. The gesture reminded him of one of his earliest victims, who had attempted to retain his intestines. It had proven less than successful. "Marik, we both know you're not playing for that team."

"What team?" Marik blinked.

"You know," Bakura held out his hands, his thumb and forefinger creating a circle which his other hand then penetrated with his index. "That team."

"I'm not deaf, Bakura, stop trying to use sign language!" Marik cried in frustration. "Whichever team it is, I shall defeat them! I am the best at sports! In basketball, I was always the first kid poisoned!"

"No, no," Bakura sighed. "Look, I'm going to say this as plainly as I can. Marik, you are gay."

"I am extremely happy, yes."

"Gay. Homosexual. You find men attractive."

"I am extremely happy, yes."

If Bakura had a limit, it had been reached. "Look at this!"

He reached over the keyboard, upon which he had been sleeping, and pressed a button on the monitor across from him. It flickered to life, and the desktop wallpaper displayed fan-art of the two of them naked, Marik entering him from behind. He had typically hidden this image from view, always switching it to something more innocent whenever someone - usually Marik - entered the room, but now was as good a time as any to reveal his secret.

"Now tell me without thinking, as difficult as that must be for you," Bakura urged as Marik leaned over his shoulder to get a look at the picture, "how does this make you feel?"

"I look kinda chubby," Marik wrinkled his nose. "Seriously, my butt is not that big."

"Yes, but are you turned on or not?" Bakura demanded.

"By my fake chubby buttocks?" Marik replied. "Of course not!"

"By the idea, Marik! The idea!"

"Well, it's not nearly as good as some of the fan-art I have of us," Marik shrugged. "But I suppose it's okay."

"Damn it, you bloody... Wait, what?" Bakura's ears pricked up, and his jaw sunk. His neck twisted round and he felt his brow become a mess of perspiration, and his cheeks two round, pink suns. "You have fan-art of... us?"

"Of course!" Marik brought his hand to his chest and laughed proudly. "When you look this good, people love to draw you. Most of it isn't nearly as sexy as the real thing, but when I find something that really captures my hotness, I like to hold onto it."

"Yes, but you said you have fan-art of us!" Bakura persisted. Getting Marik to admit to any homoerotic urges was a breakthrough, but Bakura knew from experience that it was going to be twice as difficult to get him to remember doing so. "That means both you and I. And if it's anything like this..."

"Oh, it's nothing like that," Marik waved his hand dismissively, momentarily destroying Bakura's interest. "It's way hotter."

Bakura felt the long dead heart in his ribcage twitch to life, like some post-mortem reflex brought about by the stimulant of Marik's pride. "Hotter, you say."

"Uh-huh," Marik added. "I only collect the crème de la crème of pornography."

"Crème, you say."

"Though I will admit," Marik went on, "a lot of the pictures out there seem to think that you'd be the one dominating me. And we both know that could never happen!"

"Mmm," Bakura rested his head on his arm and stared up at Marik through keen and interested eyes, stalking him short-distance. He had put a lot of thought into the physical side of their relationship and how it would come to pass, should anything come of it, and he had to admit that he found it far more enticing to let the boy take charge. In his fantasies, if nowhere else, he wanted to be subjugated. "So you do think about it."

"Think about what?" Marik blinked.

"Us! Together!" Bakura drew the words through his mouth as though he were peeling meat from bone between his teeth. "Fucking."

"Eh," Marik shrugged. "It comes up. I mean, everyone thinks we're boyfriends."

"They do, don't they," Bakura sighed wistfully. It was rare that he wanted his fangirls to be right about something.

"But just because I think about that stuff, it doesn't make me gay!" Marik argued, placing his Rod bearing hand against his side and wagging a finger at the evil spirit. "How else would I be going on a date with a beautiful girl?"

"You don't have a bloody date," Bakura spat. "If you did, I'd have noticed you talking to someone who isn't me."

These words rang painfully true, and the guilt in Bakura's throat rose like acrid bile. Bakura had doomed himself to a solitary life of vengeance and hate, but Marik - Marik could be more than this. Certainly their motives matched in all the right ways, but that was no reason to drag the boy down with him. He didn't regret teaming up with Marik. Hell, it had been one of the few things that gave him something resembling happiness. Reminded him of the good things in his life that had been taken at such an early age. But for Marik, there were no benefits. All he was doing was making Marik more and more like him. Angry and alone.

"That's where you're wrong!" Marik brought the Rod out before him, pointing the tip between Bakura's eyes. Bakura held up his index finger and slowly moved the mystical artifact with untold power away from his nose. "My girlfriend and I have been talking for months!"

"Months?" Bakura was taken aback. Perhaps Marik wasn't as thickheaded as he had so often assumed. Or perhaps he was just so deep in the closet that he'd started talking to invisible people from the make-believe land of Narnia. "How could you possibly...?"

"A little thing Al Gore invented called: The Internet!" declared Marik. "Whenever I tell you I'm going to get some beauty sleep, what I'm really doing is chatting with my hetero love interest on Skype!" Marik laughed, the sound not unlike that of a panicked duck making a hasty landing. "I'm surprised you never figured it out, Bakura. After all, I don't even need beauty sleep!"

"An internet girlfriend?" Bakura stifled his laughter as efficiently as he suffocated his victims. "That's... wonderful. But you do realise that eleven out of ten women on the internet are giant bearded men, don't you?"

"Not MY giant bearded man," said Marik. "She is a giant bearded woman. Without the beard."

"Still a giant, though?"

"We are very much in love," Marik continued unabated. "She does things for me that nobody else ever could."

"On the internet."

"She understands me, Bakura," Marik implored, his voice growing oddly soft. "Though I don't know if I'll ever understand her. She's so mysterious, yet equally as sexy as me. And she has this control over me, but I never feel like she's controlling me. You know?"

Bakura played idly with the Ring against his shirt. "I know."

"So I'm going on a date," Marik repeated finally. "A date with a girl! A straight date! With a lady! One hundred percent normal!"

"Normal indeed," Bakura remarked, eyeballing Marik's tux and noting how unnatural it all seemed. If anything, that body demanded less clothing, not more. He turned to his desktop and admired the wallpaper adorning the monitor, their sweaty, naked bodies peppered with such folders as 'THFSHPNG(1)' and 'MARIKTOPPING'. He sighed. "Well, have fun. Let me know how badly it goes."

The sound of Marik's shoes squeaking their way across the room made him cringe, and then the noise halted abruptly. Bakura waited for the door to open, though for a time it never did. Then came Marik's voice, all broken up with embarrassment. "Um, Bakura?"

"What."

"Could you... Could you come with me?"

"I beg your pardon?" Bakura's finger hesitated in mid-click as he had guided the mouse cursor to the folder labelled 'RNDMYAOI'. He had built up plenty of frustration, but had not been in the mood to stare at images of Marik while he dealt with it - not when the boy insisted on denying his own sexuality to the point of madness. On the taskbar, a Skype window blinked innocently - an old conversation, one he didn't even remember having. He'd been up so late, everything had become a nonsensical, hormonally fused blur. "Come with you? On your straight date? Wouldn't that seem a tad gay?"

"I don't know the first thing about girls," Marik confessed.

"Aside from how to dress like one?" Bakura offered. He could feel Marik scowling at the back of his neck, so he turned and offered his hands to the other, waving the remark off. "Come on, Marik. I'm about as ignorant as you when it comes to dating."

"But you're better with people," came the answer.

"Better at torturing them, perhaps," Bakura chuckled. He noted the serious look on Marik's face and blew a bang from his eyes in frustration. "Listen, neither of us are very good at being... nice. But if one of us could pull it off, I expect it's you. You said yourself you've been talking to this girl for months."

Marik shuffled his feet and looked for all the world like a kid who didn't want to have his first day at school. "What if she doesn't like me?"

Bakura looked at Marik. He wondered how he had grown so close to the boy in such a short amount of time. It had been suggested that the enemy of his enemy must be his friend. But Marik was nobody's enemy, except perhaps his own. Bakura had seen the darkness within the boy, the irrepressible cruelty and hatred, the part of him that believed nothing deserved to live or love or know freedom. That was the Marik everyone feared. This Marik? The boy who tried to rearrange people's sock drawers and obtain their leather trousers? He was harmless. Cute, even. And he would probably never hurt anyone if he were given just a little bit of care and attention. Yet somehow, through no fault of his own, evil lived deep within his heart.

And then, something very wrong happened.

Bakura knew sympathy.

"She probably won't," Bakura admitted, getting to his feet and walking over to him. "In fact, like most people, she'll probably think you're a lunatic. Or an idiot. But that's her problem. Besides, since when did Marik Sebastian Ishtar ever-"

"The third."

"Yes," Bakura's eyes rolled, seemingly of their own free will. "Since when did he ever let someone else's opinion bother him? You've made a name out of ignoring other people's thoughts and feelings. Especially mine."

"Just come out with me?" Marik asked. "Just for a while. Make sure I don't make a complete buttock out of myself."

Bakura looked at the boy, and was about to turn and leave him to his own devices, when a small, polite voice chirped brightly at him from within the Millennium Ring.

_Go with him,_ it said.

_Why the bloody hell should I?_ he asked.

_Because you've nothing to lose,_ Ryou continued, _you'll either enjoy watching him make a fool out of himself, or there won't even be a girl there and you get to tell him you told him so._

_Since when did you take pleasure in the misfortunes of others?_ Bakura cocked his head to one side.

_Maybe you're rubbing off on me,_ the voice whispered harshly.

"I can't guarantee that," Bakura sighed, placing his hands on Marik's shoulders. "But I can guarantee that you won't be coming home alone tonight."

"So you'll come?" Marik perked up. Were he a puppy, his tail would have doubltessly wagged itself silly. But of course, were he a puppy, Bakura would have been drowning him, not comforting him.

"I'll come," Bakura winked. "It's a date."

"A straight date!" Marik urged.

"Call it what you will."

###

The Oasis Bar smelled like no oasis Bakura had ever visited. This place was thick with the stench of humanity and alcohol. Everywhere he looked, he saw people laughing, flirting, or drinking. Usually all three. It was only six o'clock in the evening, yet people had already resigned themselves to wasting the rest of their evening on drink and foolishness. It was rather pathetic.

Bakura understood the appeal of alcohol, of course. When you experienced pain and solitude the way he had, he knew how easy it could be to try and turn off the voice in your head that screamed for satisfaction, for retribution, for anything just to balance the bloodsoaked chaos that was his world. But he never wanted to. He never wanted to dull the pain or quiet the sounds from his nightmares, because they were everything. If he didn't have the anger, what would motivate him? Would he even exist if he allowed himself to find peace at the bottom of a bottle? No. It was his mad lust for vengeance that sustained him, and liquor would be no replacement for that.

Marik, on the other hand, had wasted no time ordering a gin and tonic to calm his nerves. Bakura had pointed out to him that this was a woman's drink, whereupon Marik changed his order to a double, as if to prove that he could hold twice as much drink as any woman. Bakura had watched him grow tipsy from almost the first sip, and he had initially enjoyed the sight of Marik's face flushing as he sang poorly remembered versions of songs that were playing. Then Marik had become downright jovial, which meant his voice was twice as loud as his normal racket, and the looks they were getting caused Bakura to shrink more rapidly into his seat with every passing minute.

They had been waiting at the bar for about an hour when Bakura decided ask the question that had been nagging at him all night: "So where the bloody hell is she?"

"Who?" Marik bleated, holding an ice-cube up to the neon light of the oasis-themed bar sign and smirking to himself like someone with a secret. "These ice cubes, Bakura. I have so many ideas for them."

"The girl," Bakura pushed the conversation back the way it came. "The one you were supposed to be on a date with right now. You said she'd be here."

"Oh! Right!" Marik popped the half-melted cube into his mouth and clasped it between his teeth. He turned and looked dead-on at Bakura, grinning widely so that he could see Marik's tongue darting back and forth against the misshapen chunk of ice. Bakura flushed a little, and focused on the point in space just above Marik's forehead. "Sheee'sh promally jusht late. Hey Magurah, we should todally pass ice gubes to each osher. Wish only our mouthsh."

"Spit that out, Marik," Bakura chided.

Marik obliged. "Fun wrecker."

"You want me to be your chaperone, then do as I say," Bakura growled. "Also do try to keep your voice down. You may be drunk, but you're making me feel like I have a hangover."

Bakura stared at his reflection in the mirror installed at the back of the bar. He stood out not so much like a sore thumb, but like a thumb that had been ripped from its original hand and transplanted to another, less rugged appendage. He remembered his old face. The scar that never healed. He recalled sitting in the shade of many a real oasis, and listening to the sound of the wind, his toes biting the sand as he cast his face to a heaven that ignored his prayers. He remembered that wild creature, who tried to carve his way through Egypt and stab straight into its black and corrupted heart. He wondered if he could even do that now, with Marik tied to him so intrinsically. He had once been willing to bleed for no-one, but now he would have gladly given so much for another. Perhaps even his life.

He felt something rubbing against his thigh, and he looked down to see Marik's leg leaning casually against his. He half-smiled, and turned to look deeply into Marik's eyes, only to find the boy had planted himself face-first on the bar, gurgling to himself.

"Ugh."

"You know," the bartender, an unpleasant looking blonde girl, interjected as she poured. She nodded at the drunken Egyptian and gave Bakura a knowing look. "There's a bar for your type a few blocks away. Maybe you'd both feel more comfortable..."

"Thankyou," Bakura growled as politely as he could muster. "But we're not."

"You're not?" She blinked.

"We're not," he repeated emphatically. He scooped up the last remaining ice cube from Marik's glass and placed it against the back of Marik's neck.

"GAJCKAH!" Marik spluttered, throwing himself into an upright position and squirming. "Okay, I am now sober!"

"No you're not," Bakura replied.

"I am!" Marik declared, steadying himself on the edge of the bar. "Go on, ask me anything."

"Where the bloody hell is your date?" Bakura asked once more.

Marik's face grew pensive and indeed sober. With one flick of his wrist, he shoved his empty glass to one side and turned to face Bakura. He recognised that look. He'd seen that look in Marik's eyes before, when he'd chosen to talk openly about his past. It was riddled with shame, yet somehow there was still the faintest sense of pride living in it - like a massacred village with only one survivor.

Bakura swallowed.

And then the music changed, and Marik's face with it.

"Ooh! I love this one!" Marik squealed, clasping his hands together by his chin and launching himself up onto his wobbly knees. He wandered out into the crowd, his voice leaving a faint trail of laughter behind him. "Come on, Bakura!"

"Wait! Wait a moment...!"

Bakura stumbled haphazardly across the room, brushing past people he would normally have gone out of his way to avoid. On one occassion, a young woman tried to strike up conversation with him, and he merely had to narrow his eyelids to notify her that her night would be better spent in the company of someone far more harmless. He prowled for a good five minutes, before realising he'd come full circle.

"How difficult can it be to find Marik of all people?" He chastised himself. "Especially DRUNK Marik."

"Bak-ooo-rah! There you are!"

Before he even had time to react, Marik had sprung from out of nowhere, taken him by the arm, and was now starting to dance with him. It wasn't any kind of dancing Bakura had ever done - mostly because as a rule, Bakura did not dance. In fact, he didn't recall ever having reason to. Still, here he was, hands placed in Marik's as the boy dragged his feet clumsily across the floor and moved in time with the slow, sombre beat of the 80s classic. Bakura's whole body grew rigid as he realised how awkward he must have looked, and how poorly he was dancing.

"Forever young," Marik sang, strangely in tune. "I want to be forever young." He leaned in close and slid his fingers between Bakura's, their bodies moving together like a pair of uncertain wrestlers. Bakura noticed that a number of Marik's shirt buttons had come undone, and he could spy light brown flesh beneath the silken fabric. He breathed. It was all he could concentrate on. "Do you really want to live forever, forever..."

"Marik."

Their faces were so close. Bakura could feel the heat of Marik's breath against his face and neck. He could see imperfections in his eyeliner, and lights in his eyes that probably didn't exist.

"Bakura?"

Marik drew closer still, and Bakura could feel their arms dropping naturally into place at their sides. He felt the skin all the way up his arm itch where it rested against Marik's sleeves, and for a second he thought that the music had been altogether replaced by the cacophony of his own heartbeat.

"Where is she?" Bakura halted their performance, his feet planting themselves firmly together. He pulled his mind out of the moment and could no longer hear the music or see the lights. He was empty of feeling once again, clinical and cold. "Your date. The one you got all dressed up to meet."

Marik was silent. His face held the look Bakura imagined children got when they discovered the mythological properties of Santa Claus. A look he had never had the pleasure of earning. Had he met Yugi Moto many years earlier, he likely would have revelled in the chance to draw him little notes that explained such things as the Easter Bunny being a lie, but alas he arrived too late for such evildoings. Instead he was forced to watch Marik suffer and pout, a thing he would typically relish. But not tonight.

"Marik," Bakura said. He moved to touch Marik's face, but readjusted and simply brushed the hair from his own. "She's not real, is she?"

"She's real," Marik replied. "That's why it hurts so much that she isn't here."

Bakura took a look around, and then pulled Marik close. He held him for a good three seconds before releasing, and the expression on the boy's face was enough to tell him that it had been effective. The tears that had been welling were now out, rolling down his face and no more were forthcoming. He scowled at the display, once more hiding his concern.

"It's an internet thing, Marik," Bakura explained calmly. "People hide being their anonymity and take advantage of idiots, like yourself. I do it all the time."

"You do?" Marik asked.

"Of course," Bakura smirked proudly. "There are few things more evil than a good internet troll. And I am a very, very good internet troll."

"But it all seemed so genuine," Marik whined. "And sexy."

"It's very easy to be sexy on the internet," said Bakura. "Not so much in reality. You've got it easy, Marik. Few people are even close to your level of sexiness."

"Oh, you're just saying that," Marik laughed weakly, his ego struggling to recouperate.

"Not at all," Bakura confided. "In fact, I would hasten to add I'm rather jealous. If anyone has more fangirls than me, it's you."

Marik rubbed his eyes. "So you think she was just some random troll on the internet, using me?"

"No doubt about it," Bakura nodded. "It's the sort of thing I'd do without thinking. Heck, I use my Skype account all the time to seduce losers and lure them into ridiculous cybersex situations. This one time I even managed to trick Joey Wheeler into pretending he was a St. Bernard, and I was..." He looked to Marik, who had already begun to fidget uncomfortably. "Nevermind. I'll tell you later."

"I guess I'll never know who Midknight really was," Marik muttered to himself.

Bakura froze noticeably, which was a difficult feat because he hadn't actually been moving. "Midknight?"

"Yeah," Marik said. "That's what she called herself."

"Midknight," Bakura's voice was hoarse, like he'd just been socked in the gut, "with a K...?"

"Yeah...?" Marik was visibly stunned. "Wow, Bakura, you're really good at hearing silent letters. Maybe that's your mutant power! We'd better keep quiet about this, or Magneto might..."

"Marik," Bakura hissed, his face as expressive as a body bag. "We need to go."

"Why, is Magneto already here?"

"We need to go," Bakura grabbed him by the collar, the words proving difficult like footfalls in thick mud. "Right now. We need. To go."

Bakura led Marik from the bar by the collar, much to the relief of the patrons who had expected them to either start making out or murdering everyone in sight, or both at the same time.

###

"This had better be good, Bakura," Marik folded his arms as Bakura booted up his computer. "I had been preparing to shake what my mother gave me!"

"Marik, that doesn't..." Bakura thought about it for a second, and then realised that most of Marik's good looks probably did come from his mother's side of the family. "No, you're right, it was wrong of me to spoil your fun. But this is very bloody important."

"Do you have The Sims?" Marik asked.

"No, I don't."

"We should play The Sims after we're done."

"Marik, I don't HAVE The Sims."

"Okay," Marik watched him enter his password. "But afterwards we should get it and play it."

"I'm not buying bloody Sims!" Bakura snarled. "Why in buggery's name would I want something like that?"

"Because then you can make them get jobs and touch each other," Marik explained, matter-of-factly. "And then you win the game."

"Oh look, my computer's on," Bakura ignored Marik's answer and logged on to Skype. He dragged the mouse cursor down the long list of chat windows and clicked on one of them. A very specific chat window. "You'll probably find this rather familiar."

Marik leaned over his shoulder, and Bakura waited for the fabled penny to drop.

BLISHYTHEBISHY: HEY A/S/S  
>Midknight: Erm. What?<br>BLISHYTHEBISHY: A/S/S  
>Midknight: Don't you mean AS/L?  
>BLISHYTHEBISHY: No, because I want to know all about your AS/S ahahahahahaha!  
>Midknight: Oh, I like you.<br>BLISHYTHEBISHY: I like me too!  
>Midknight: We have that in common, then.<br>BLISHYTHEBISHY: YES!  
>Midknight: Would you care for some cybersex?<br>BLISHYTHEBISHY: Isn't that what we're doing?  
>Midknight: Oh, trust me.<br>Midknight: What we're doing barely qualifies as foreplay.  
>BLISHYTHEBISHY: Wait. You are a girl, aren't you?<br>Midknight: Yyyyes. Why else would I be randomly offering you sex?  
>BLISHYTHEBISHY: That does make sense.<br>Midknight: Now put it in my vagina that totally exists.  
>BLISHYTHEBISHY: WOW YES OKAY.<p>

"This goes on for a while," Bakura coughed, scrolling down a long wall of half-capitalised text.

"Oh hey! These are my old chat logs with Midknight," Marik nodded. Then he shifted awkwardly. "But why are you showing me these, Bakura? And for that matter, how did you even log into my Skype account? I was positive my password was foolproof!"

"This isn't your account, Marik," said Bakura.

They both stared at the screen as chat logs scrolled past their faces, recounting night after night of illicit and ill-written cybering throughout the course of almost seven months. Bakura looked on with a broad, somewhat bashful smile, while Marik was simply agape. He saw the icon, depicting a dark figure with familiar bat wings for hair, and he knew at once what had been happening. They'd both been having fake internet sex together every single night, completely unbeknownst to each other. Mostly unbeknownst to Marik. Bakura himself had manipulated the whole situation, although to have snagged Marik in his lurid digital web was merely happy coincidence.

"So you were Midknight all along?" Marik gasped. "This is just like that one movie where it turned out Bruce Willis was actually a bad actor!"

"Afraid so," Bakura leaned back in the chair and look askance at the bewildered boy. "It looks like you had your date after all, Marik. But it's very strange. I don't recall ever asking you out."

"You don't?" said Marik. "It was just last night. You seemed really eager to meet up. You even picked the place!"

"What are you blathering about...?" Bakura's eyes fell upon the final chat log that had been saved overnight, in the blinking window he'd forgotten to check before leaving for the Oasis Bar. "What in the blazes is this?"

Midknight: Hey.  
>BLISHYTHEBISHY: OH HI!<br>BLISHYTHEBISHY: You interrupted me while I was busy accepting an award for being such an incredible sexual athlete!  
>Midknight: Listen.<br>BLISHYTHEBISHY: I dedicated it to you, my trainer.  
>Midknight: I want to meet you.<br>BLISHYTHEBISHY: Is meet a word for sex because if so we already met like a thousand times.  
>Midknight: I'm serious. I think I know who you really are, and I'd like to meet you. To confirm it.<br>BLISHYTHEBISHY: Wha...?  
>Midknight: If I'm right, then you could be the one.<br>BLISHYTHEBISHY: ...  
>Midknight: No matter what you're thinking right now, I want you to know.<br>Midknight: I don't hate you.  
>Midknight: In fact, you could say I love you.<br>BLISHYTHEBISHY: I'm really confused.  
>Midknight: Don't be.<br>Midknight: I've been here for you this whole time.  
>Midknight: We don't have to be alone.<br>Midknight: Neither of us has to feel that way anymore.  
>BLISHYTHEBISHY: ... You really mean all this?<br>Midknight: Yes. Meet me at The Oasis Bar in town. You name the time.  
>BLISHYTHEBISHY: Six o'clock...?<br>Midknight: All right. I hope I'll see you there.  
>BLISHYTHEBISHY: ... And you're definitely a girl?<br>BLISHYTHEBISHY: With a vagina and everything?  
>BLISHYTHEBISHY: Hello?<p>

"That's when you stopped responding," Marik said.

"The bloody hell?" Bakura's whole body crawled with an unsettling feeling. That was his account, and there was nobody else who could have accessed his computer. He'd been logged on all night. The only person who had the ability to do so was... him.

Or rather, not him.

_I'm sorry, _the voice spoke softly. _I was just so tired of you tricking him._

_So you played a trick of your own,_ Bakura closed his eyes and shook his head. _I underestimated you. I do that all too often. But how did you know it was him I was cybering with?_

_This isn't the first time I've used your account to chat with him after you've fallen asleep, _Ryou explained. _Obviously he didn't want to divulge his name quite so easily. However, a few cryptic questions here and there were all I needed._

"Are you all right, Bakura?" Marik asked. "Do you think maybe your account was hacked into?"

"Not as such," Bakura grumbled. He slipped his fingers around the cold metal of the Ring, and held it aloft to Marik. "It was him."

"Your landlord?" asked Marik.

"Don't call him that," Bakura replied. "That's not the word I'd use."

There was a moment's hesitation before either of them felt they should speak. When one of them did, it was Marik: "Well. I suppose we should just sort of forget this ever happened."

"Probably for the best," Bakura admitted, clicking the Delete Contact button on his Skype window. "This has been a very unfortunate turn of events."

"Yeah," Marik nodded, starting to walk away. He began to unbutton the rest of his shirt as he spoke. "Not that I didn't enjoy... a lot of the things. You know. I mean, you're very... Descriptive."

"And you're very eager," Bakura purred. "I never really had to ask you to do anything. You just took what you wanted. I do like that."

"Best we just forget though," Marik sighed.

"Yes," Bakura nodded. "Especially that dance."

"Oh, I know, right?" Marik laughed sheepishly. "What was that?"

"Bugger if I know," Bakura chuckled in return. He reached across the desk and placed his hand on the mouse, sliding it down towards a folder on the desktop. "Certainly not rhythm."

"Duh, rhythm? What's that?" Marik imitated his own limping dance moves, and Bakura shook his head in response. "Anyway. I guess we should just sleep on this."

"Right," Bakura agreed. He double clicked on the folder and opened it, perusing its contents and biting his lip.

"Goodnight, Bakura," Marik said, reaching for his bedroom door handle. He hesitated, as if expecting the handle to explode into flame. Then he turned it, eyes shutting themselves tightly as if to deny everything around him that reminded him he was in love. And everything did remind him.

He was halfway through the doorway when Bakura clicked the mouse button, and music poured from the computer's speaker system. While it didn't have quite the same effect as it did in the bar, hearing Alphaville's Forever Young pumped through tinny, hollow speakers from one side of the room was enough to freeze Marik in his tracks. He turned and looked at Bakura, who sat staring at the monitor as if nothing seemed off or awry. In fact, he showed no reaction whatsoever. It was only Marik who seemed to feel weak at the knees upon hearing that song once more, whose heart seemed to have been caught on the end of some invisible fisherman's hook. Only he felt the warmth spread from his chest to his face, or his lips grow dry and tight like the skin of a drum.

Marik walked across the room and stood beside Bakura, whose gaze remained stalwartly on the monitor, ignoring the boy. It was as though Marik was having an out of body experience, and everything he now saw was illusory. He imagined himself drifting across the room as a spirit, not a person, and resting against Bakura and feeling their very souls touch. He reached out and caressed Bakura's arm.

Now Bakura looked to him, and delivered an indifferent blink. Marik allowed himself barely a moment's thought before he leaned into the kiss, which lasted mere seconds before he followed through with another, and another, and at last he felt himself holding Bakura, truly holding him the way people are meant to, the way he's read about in so many books. He had never held anyone this way. The last time he'd been held was when he'd discovered his father's corpse. This was far and away a different feeling. This was like finding something new, like breathing life into something that many people had given up on. This was passion like nothing he'd ever felt, because it was theirs.

They kissed for a good few minutes, tongues working away at each other, while sometimes Bakura would move down and press his lips to Marik's exposed chest. When he decided it was over, Bakura raised his hand up and shoved Marik to one side, getting out of the chair and walking deliberately to the opposite side of the room where his bedroom lay. Marik watched him go, flustered, the music coming to a stop. It started up again, the player set to repeat, as Bakura opened the door. He turned and gave Marik a sly wink, and then entered his bedroom, slowly closing the door behind him.

Inside, Bakura went about unbuttoning his pants, when barely two seconds after the door had been closed, Marik launched it violently open and pounced on Bakura, who caught him instinctively and laughed, falling back onto the bed. Their legs scrambled together clumsily, Bakura's cycling wildly in the air and Marik's squirming to maintain his dominance. Their lips met and their movements slowed, hearts still racing, and Marik's hands found their way undernearth Bakura's shirt. Bakura felt nails digging into his skin and he moaned loud syllables of nothing into Marik's mouth. The bed shook as Bakura wrestled beneath him, but Marik had gained control.

They broke for air, and Bakura's eyes flared up at the boy. "Show me that tattoo of yours."

Wordlessly, Marik obliged, half-standing with one foot still on the bed and the other on the ground as he removed the tuxedo. Bakura watched placidly as this took place, and Marik slowly became the naked, muscular wisp that he'd dreamed about for so many nights. Marik turned so the light caught his tattoo and made it glisten, highlighted with his own sweat. Bakura admired the scars - scars that perhaps even he could not hope to match. Then again, he preferred when scars had no form, and remained mere sadistic expressions cut deep into a victim's body. But Marik's was, appropriately, a work of art.

Bakura kept his eyes on Marik, getting on all fours and shoving his backside in the air - undoing his pants and letting them drop just enough so that a hint of his bare ass could be seen. Marik didn't spare any time crawling up the bed and meeting it with his hands, caressing it and slowly tugging the waistline of his trousers down with his thumbs. Bakura's ragged breath was the loudest noise in the room, whilst Marik went about his business silently, the way a snake operated - enticing, hypnotic, beautiful.

Retrieving a bottle of lube from the bedside table, Marik emptied out a handful and jammed his digits into the mess. He shuffled forward, his hardened member resting against Bakura's thigh as he pressed a hand against the small of his back and slid the other's index and medius fingers into Bakura's ass. Bakura hissed, asshole tightening around the fingers while his leg muscles flexed and he felt Marik grow harder still. He reached around behind himself and touched Marik's cock, nails caressing the tip and the shaft, and he too felt himself grow. With his free hand, Marik snuck his other hand between Bakura's legs and groped at his balls, tickling them and encouraging his now fully erect cock. Then he slapped his fingers around Bakura's shaft and worked it, as a third finger entered his asshole. Bakura's grip on Marik's cock loosened as he felt himself losing control.

Marik spread his fingers inside Bakura and grinned at the sound of the other's cries, an urgent mixture of pain and excitement. He pumped hard at Bakura's modest member, using every technique he'd developed while growing up. Living in a tomb, where every door was open, it was hard to find time to masturbate - but when he did, he was creative with it, and now Bakura was reaping the benefits. It helped that his cock was considerably smaller, meaning Marik had full control over it with just the one hand. When he felt the tip grow angry and hot, he hooked his fingers inside his ass and rubbed the end of his cock intensely, letting Bakura's semen spill into his fingers and down his wrist.

Bakura cursed under his breath as he felt himself climax, his face a bright pink mess, eyelids twitching as he rode the orgasm out. When the feeling passed, he went to bury his face in the pillow, only to feel Marik's hands retrieve themselves and grip hold of either side of his waist. He had mere seconds to prepare himself, his gut feeling not unlike it would on a rollercoaster right before the largest drop came into view, before he felt Marik penetrate him from behind, his massive cock plunging into him and sending electricity coursing up his body. He dug his hands into the covers and allowed his ass to be driven forward while his skull narrowly avoided slamming into the headstand. He revelled in the intense, almost violent feeling. He imagined it wasn't dissimilar to how Marik himself felt as the knife came down on his back, time after time, lash after lash, slice after slice, gash after gash. He cried with every thrust, and with every thrust he wanted more. Wanted to feel Marik's desire, his virility, his passion. But most of all he wanted his cock.

He wanted to swear, to yell, to dirty talk as Marik fucked him from behind, but all these things were impossible because the boy barely gave him time to breathe. It started hard and fast and only got harder and faster. It wasn't romantic. Fuck romance. It wasn't perfect. Fuck perfection. But it was good, and it was now, and it was hot, and it was right Eventually he steadied himself, Marik's pounding far more rhythmic than their dancing had been and therefore easier to predict, and he found enough control to speak a mere three words. He knew he had three words, and he knew he had to use them well. Then he would be lost to the act. A toy to be played with. Putty in Marik's hands.

"Marik..."

One word.

"What!" Marik growled, his thrusts unabated.

"Fuck..."

Two words.

"Me."

And with that his body was Marik's, and they moved as one, Marik's member shooting up and down his asshole so fluidly you'd think it had been designed for it, and Bakura's voice became a single, never-ending stretch of "Ohh!" and Marik rode it, rode it all the way to the end like some rugged, uneven highway.

He finished. Bakura felt Marik's hands slide up his stomach and reach around him, like someone clinging to a piece of driftwood in a storm. Bakura grunted, and waited for Marik to pull out, before turning over and bringing the boy to him in a sweaty, if not loving, embrace. He tried to speak a few times, but nothing came of it. Either the words weren't there, or they weren't enough to properly describe what he felt at that moment. No words could. The closest he came was when he reached behind Marik as he drifted off to sleep and ran his finger all the way around his tattoo, time after time, until he knew it by heart. Without even having to look, he could draw it in his mind's eye. A memory of such great pain, shared by both men.

It was the closest thing they would ever have to knowing true love.


End file.
